Okay, so you know when you learn something that makes *complete* sense...maybe it's something that would be completely inevitable even...but you had never really stopped to think about it?

Earlier this year I was at a furry event, taking pictures, as I do. One of the revelers came up to me and thanked me for taking photos, noting that he likes seeing my uploads on Twitter and the like. He then asked me two favors. 1: The picture I just took of him and a fursuiter, could I forward that to him as soon as possible? And 2: could I not post that picture on the internet, because he works at a school and the kids there watch my photostream and he doesn't want to be outed as a furry to them.

Honestly I was taken aback by that for a moment. Like...kids? Kids watch my photostream?

It's the sort of thing that again, makes perfect sense, seems inevitable even. I just never really stopped to think about it before. As I mentioned in a prior journal entry, I do curate my photostream to be PG. I do the same for my Twitter feed as well, trying to be very cognizant of things that I like and retweet. I just want to make sure that my feeds are safe and accessible to everyone. So, the idea that kids at a middle/high school might be viewing my photostreams is part of the reason I keep it PG. Yet, it had never felt like a real thing until that person mentioned it to me.

How do you take a tripod with you on an airline?

I'm flying tomorrow and might have need of my tripod. But my tripod is about 4-5 feet tall when collapsed, about 20 pounds. I doubt it can be taken on as carry-on. Or can it? But at the same time, the carrying case does not (by design) fully zip up, so putting it into checked luggage seems like it would simply fall out and have other sorts of problems. So how do I fly with this thing?

So let me tell you a story about a photo of mine that I just absolutely hate, and why I hate it.

Some background - photography can be quite difficult to get right. The chief problems being focus, white balancing, color expression, light levels foreground and background, etc. Managing all those things is difficult enough during controlled settings, and a nightmare when you're running around hallways and rooms with radically different light and color levels every few meters. Since I've gotten into photography, I've developed a deep appreciation for those who get it right. Many of the posts on Twitter I "like" are for that reason - a photograph that is extremely well composed or otherwise very difficult to pull off under even the best of circumstances.

Now, liking those photos...I've often hesitated and sometimes had to pass on doing so. That is because some of them are a bit..risque. I try to be cognizant of the fact that my page is SFW, and people following me expect it to stay that way. Sometimes, however, I forget. I'll "like" a photo that is perhaps a bit more suggestive than PG (which is what I try to adhere to), and I've noticed I've lost a few followers because of it. Sometimes I forget that Twitter will pop up those tweets of "hey this post was liked by <x>". But I respect that people have to curate their timelines. I lament it, and I try my hardest to keep adhering to that PG rating, but sometimes I'll forget or not notice a perhaps grander context of the photo in question that moves it over into the PG-13 realm.

So what does this have to do with a picture that I hate? Well, I once took a picture that had amazing technical quality to it. The light levels are exact and perfect, the target is in perfect focus, the colors come through true, there's no color bleed, no excessively bright highlights, no dark splotches of overly-shadowed area. It's basically perfect. There's only two things wrong with it. 1: It was a "shot from the hip" and not anything I was trying to seriously capture. So I can't even claim that this photo is an expression of skill I possess; it's merely a lucky shot. 2: it's deep into that PG-13 realm, so it's not something I'm particularly proud of or tend to highlight often.

So how did this picture come to be?
Back during Anthrocon 2015, I was taking photos of some friends in the concourse/hallways in the convention center. We did a few rounds of photos there, then one of them (Leo, if memory serves correctly) suggested that we take the escalators up to the DLCC roof and take more photos there. So he led the way, followed by Frazzles, and myself following them. Frazzles was right in front of me on the up escalator, and the curly tail on his fursuit was almost in my face. So I said in a really joking tone, "Oh Frazzles I see your butt!!" He turned around and pantomimed a cutesy embarrassed expression and started wagging his butt. Then I said, again in a joking tone, "Well if you wag your butt in my face I'm going to take a picture of it!" Well he kept wagging, so I picked up my DSLR in my right hand, and held it about chest high and one-handed the shot. I didn't adjust any of the settings for aperture, ISO, or shutter speed since the prior photos in the darker hallway area. I just picked up that camera, hit the shutter release, which of course made a sound, and we had a chuckle about it. That's it. We continued to the roof, took more photos, and continued on with the rest of our day.

Heck, I didn't even remember taking it.

Weeks later, as I was sitting down in front of my computer, I found the photo in the timeline. I chuckled as I remembered the circumstances of it, and I was about to delete it, when I noticed that it came out dang-near perfectly. Minimal processing would be required to bring it up to my posting standard. And the more I looked at it, and realized how well it came out, the more annoyed I got with it. Here it was - finally a photo I took really well. A photo that had all the technical quality I wish I could bring out with all my photos. But it wasn't something I set up or planned. It was merely a lucky shot. And with that, proving once and for all, that my camera was not at all holding me back, and I just sucked that much at everyday photography.

Worse yet, here was a photo that I'd still, despite that, want to display and show off to everyone. That if it were something a tad more appropriate I might print it off in a 8"x10" frame and hang it on my wall as an achievement I could reflect upon. But it was a fursuiter's butt. It gnaws at me like some spiteful instance of good fortune.

So what is this photo? This one: https://www.flickr.com/photos/99893.....n/photostream/ All the technical everyday quality I wish I could get so easily on all my photos. Granted it's not like the spectacularly difficult shots a lot of people post on Twitter (like getting a fursuiter fully lit against a setting sun, stuff like that). But it's the baseline level of photography skill I wish I always had.

Won't get into the nitty gritty of it all, but work is completely exhausting me lately. Recently I had to work 15 days straight, multiple times working alone to do the work of three people, etc. My boss took a medical leave, someone else hurt themselves, and two people quit. As the next most senior person there, I've been tasked with all the responsibility, but none of the training, tools, or manpower necessary to accomplish *any* of it, nonetheless *all* of it.

I'm tired. I'm really fucking tired. It's why I haven't posted photos in weeks. Even when I'm not at work I still have to work. I just did a week's schedule yesterday, and now the district manager wants me to do two more weeks' worth tonight. Then I probably have to work from open until close tomorrow, which large chunks of it being by myself.

Because of all this, I have to cancel a trip I had planned to visit my dad, which is going to infuriate him since he thinks I'm avoiding him. I'll likely have to cancel a similar trip to see my mother next month. And after all this, the district manager is breathing fire down my neck because corporate's latest initiative went over like a lead balloon but the DM is convinced it's just because we're not trying enough.

So yes, I'm burned out. I'm tired, I'm mentally and physically exhausted. My mind is just going; I've been finding it very difficult to focus and I'm forgetting things all the time now.

Okay, so in the past I've had to have a certain conversation with my boss regarding vacation time around July 4th weekend. This is because he has some sort of timeshare at a campgrounds over that weekend, so he takes a week with his family there every year. That's why it's been difficult for me to actually get that time off for the past three years. This year, I had resigned myself as to not getting that weekend off, which is why I arranged to attend FWA instead.

Then, a month ago, we had a management shakeup at work. Old boss out, new boss in. But, it's a transition time, and I didn't feel it would be a good idea to try to take vacation time while a new boss is trying to settle into the new place. Therefore, I never mentioned it to him. Well, I can only guess my old boss put my vacation request into the payroll system before he left, because next week's schedule got posted and I was marked as being on vacation from Wednesday onward. So I saw this and was like, 'Well damn, now I'd better make something of it".

The thing is that it caught me completely unaware. Like I said, I never formally requested the time off this year. I had a discussion with my (former) boss at the beginning of the year, but I was pretty sure his vacation time was going to supersede my own. Thus, I'm not in the least bit ready to attend AC. As per my last journal entry, I am scrambling to find roomspace. I'm still chugging along through my FWA photos. My car is in the shop for scheduled maintenance, I'd not allocated any funds for this so I have to see where my savings and bills are at, I didn't even pre-reg because I assumed I wasn't going, etc etc.

So, yeah, I'm now in the position of trying to pull together all this last minute. It certainly isn't how I imagined this going.

Okay, so I'll skip the long story. I just found out today that my job is giving me off for AC. So, I can go if I get roomspace. I had one friend offer me some space on the floor. That's not too bad, considering I'd be person #3 in the room so that means it won't be crowded, but I'm wondering if I can snag anything else first. Anybody else got room?

Edit: someone made some space for me, so I'm set there. See you at AC! :)

So, I didn't make much noise about it until I was there, but I attended FWA this year. I had fun, though I feel I had somewhat deprived myself of a lot of socializing potential by not talking about FWA beforehand. Nobody really knew I was going, so I didn't have any plans to hang out with anyone. Worse yet, I hadn't even really kept track of people I knew who were going, so I found myself without the knowledge of who to @ on Twitter to even make plans for lunch. All-in-all, it was all very low-key. I came, I did my photography thing, handed out some business cards, and left.

While I could go on a rant about how excruciatingly difficult the hotel's lighting made photography, that's not really going to do anybody any good. And it's not what I want to really discuss here.


On work matters, and how it relates to convention attendance

Some of you may have noticed I've been very mum on another subject - that of Anthrocon 2019. In a typical year, I tend to make journal entries in or around February, looking for roommates or looking for roomspace. Obviously, I haven't done that yet. The reason is the same as before - my boss takes vacation time around that time of year, and he and I can't go on vacation at the same time. Heck, he and I can't even share the same days off in a normal work week, because stuff just DOES NOT get done if we are not there. This year, the stakes are even higher. For normal, everyday capitalist reasons, work has been a nightmarish whirlwind of too much work to be done and not enough people to do it. My boss, whom I respect immensely, has been working 6-7 days a week since March. And I'm certainly not going to try to weasel my way around one of his only vacations (and time with his family) in a year. Which is why I am fairly sure I will not be attending Anthrocon 2019 in any significant capacity this year. I say "significant capacity", because I might attend one night if I get consecutive days off during the event, but there's no way for me to know that until the week of.

This is also precisely why I put so much effort into attending FWA this year. In fact, it may be the only convention I get to attend.

And all this gets more complicated by other factors at work. The budget cuts are putting it into a death spiral and the pressure on all employees is skyrocketing with each passing month. My boss, again someone I respect immensely and is fairly good at his job, is ready to quit. Not just ready, but he's actively been putting in applications and doing interviews. He's considering job offers that will only pay him half as much, because the work conditions we are currently under are just not worth it. I don't even want to imagine what sort of chaos the workplace will be when the guy holding it all together just ups and leaves. If that happens, I myself may end up working 6-7 days a week trying to feebly contain as much damage as possible. But I am nowhere near as skilled as an organizer or leader as my boss is.

I'll be honest. I don't even want to work there anymore either. But I'm not likely to find another job that will be willing to pay me near what I make now, considering my lack of higher education and no particularly unique skillsets. For me, it's less about the pressure, and more about how grossly incompetent and greedy upper management is. Do you have any idea how frustrating it is to see a place of work, over the course of years, get cut down to roughly 35% of it's original labor hours, while the workload has doubled? Then to have upper management come in and blame you for everything falling apart as if their imminent need to have a helipad on their yacht wasn't the direct cause of all the problems in the first place.

I can handle the pressure and I just deal with the stuff I have control over. Not a big deal, even if the work doesn't get done. I don't let that bother me. But upper management, who has no knowledge of nor experience dealing with the stuff we do, coming in and trying to force changes to how we go about doing our work, is just rampant stupidity I don't want to deal with. Every time they open their mouths I just want to stick duct tape across their mouths and scream right into their face "YOU DO NOT HAVE ANY EXPERIENCE, BACKGROUND, OR EDUCATION IN HOW THESE THINGS WORK. EVERY SUGGESTION YOU MAKE CAUSES IT TO BE WORSE. STOP TRYING TO FORCE THE ISSUE, BECAUSE YOU ARE NOT QUALIFIED TO HAVE AN OPINION ON IT".

So yeah, that's where things stand right now. Part of me wants to play and win the lotto so I can hand a large stack of cash to all the good co-workers I have and tell them, "get the hell out of this place".


On the subject of photos - Flickr, Twitter

In the meantime, I am posting FWA photos on my Flickr https://www.flickr.com/photos/9989346@N04/

And while I'm mentioning that, I should note that I'm approaching things differently with my photos. I've had a serious drop-off of activity on my photos. Some of the reasons I can't control (like other, more-talented photographers bringing forth a lot more content, a shift away from certain web sites, etc). But some of the reasons I do know are in my control. A while ago, I stopped tagging fursuit names in my individual photos on Flickr because trying to track down identity information was a huge time sink in an already time-intensive process. So, to get photos out more efficiently, I cut that out. That resulted in my photo engagement cutting in half. So, starting with the FWA photos I'm posting, I'm putting those tags back in whenever they are easily visible in the photos (augmented by my going out of my way to photograph the badges in the moment). Because photos posted and not viewed, might as well not exist in the first place. I still won't spend hours trying to hunt down the ID's of suiters who are badge-less, but this won't be as large of a problem as it was in the past. At the con, if they didn't have a badge on (rather frequent occurrence due to lack of con badges supplied by FWA), I snapped a photo with my cell phone and @ them on Twitter. All if all else failed, I gave them my business card and wrote down a photograph number; told them to find me after the con.

In the same vein to increase viewership on my photos, I'm making a bigger effort to reach through some other platforms like Twitter. This is because I recognize that the way we interface with the internet is vastly different than it was ten years ago, and certain sites have less traffic than others but still have important centralized viewership. In other words, what I'll be doing is changing how I use Twitter in this regard. I used to post the occasional individual photo to Twitter, but this is insufficient for today's viewership. Instead, while all pics will still be on Flickr like usual, I'll also be cross-posting everything to Twitter too. Since I strive for a four photos/day, this fits nicely with what Twitter allows in a single posting. Using Twitter more will also increase the ease of viewing these photos, and the scope of potential eyeballs. Since today's audience most likely wants an easier time viewing rather than larger files, Twitter will fill that role, while the cross-linking to Flickr can still show people the full scope of my photo collection as well as where the higher-res versions are.

Simply put, my Twitter posts will look like this: https://twitter.com/Exkhaniber/stat.....31878923702275 In that example, I have the four pics on Flickr. All four have the names tagged so anyone using Flickr's search function can easily find any photo they are tagged in (which is critically important). On the Twitter side, all four photos (in smaller formats) are part of the post so they are easily shared by the parties. The Twitter post also @'s the individuals whose names were easy to find given their badges and Twitter names, and the one that isn't (Kaz) I won't fret over.

So that's it. That's my very tl;dr update on current life, how I'm handling photos, and my situation in relation to conventions.

It may be a bit early for me to judge this already, but looking at the photos for AC this year, it feels like they're better than ever before. Maybe I've finally got a better grasp of photo mechanics, but a lot of times even my test shots are coming out well. It's taking me fewer shots to optimize my settings for each new scenario, and the resulting shots I'm actually quite proud of. They're not perfect of course, I still do some editing, but the amount of editing I've had to do thus far is half as much as I did last year. A lot of photos are even acceptable to post as-shot (if I were so inclined that is, I still take the time to finesse them and make them truly shine whenever possible).

I'm still having difficulties with ultra-bright direct-sunlight shots, and dark nighttime. But at least I finally have a good handle on the middle ground. Just have to grow out from there.

Yesterday I went to work to talk to my boss about some incidental stuff, and while I was there he told me what my yearly raise ought to be. It's not finalized yet, but the numbers are there and unless there's a complication it should stay there.

This was, in almost every way possible, good news. The raise is substantial, even. And for the first time in my life I can well and truly feel secure. My job has good job security because I'm great at what I do and that's never been a problem. The problem is that my pay has been decent, but precarious. I contribute to my 401(k), my bills get paid, I set money aside in my savings, and I have a tidbit extra for niceties like going to Anthrocon. But, my pay has only just been that much. This is a large part of why I've only attended Anthrocon for many years; I just didn't have enough money to responsibly pay out for a plane ticket.

Now this raise cements my financial stability. I actually won't be spending more money - I actually plan to keep funneling the extra cash into savings. But now a new expenditure, like say a plane ticket, is something I can realistically consider. I also now have the income to eventually replace my aging vehicle (not with a new one, but with a decent used one). I can maintain my current spending and have rainy day cash. This makes me happy.

"But..", my boss said.

With this, comes a problem. I now make substantially more than any of my peers, and more than most people in my position in this district. Even before I got this raise, my district manager had more than once brought up the idea of moving me to a different store, which would exponentially increase my money spent on gasoline and car wear (fun fact- I live a block from where I work, and I've driven less than 5,000 miles in the past two years). Now that I make this amount of money (which is still probably not as much as you think), I may not have the option to say "no" if the district manager insists on moving me around. So, I'd have to say good-bye to the co-workers I've known for years and get dropped into a new store with new problems and new people that have their own hangups that I'll have to deal with.

However that's the smaller of the two problems. The other problem is that I might just get yanked into a promotion when it becomes available. I know a lot of people seem confused by that, so let me clarify. Not every promotion comes with adequate compensation (or any compensation at all) for the new responsibilities. I've seen workplaces that will only offer you twenty-five cents per hour to go from entry-level to lower-management. I've seen other places that only offer a dollar more per hour for people to move from lower to middle management, despite about a 400% increase in responsibility and accountability. So my concern is that I'll be taken out of a job I'm very much good at, a job I'm comfortable at, a job I'm decently happy with, and plopped into an entirely new and unknown scenario with no way of knowing if it'll even be worth my while to do. And probably no ability to say "no" to it either.

Sure, I might make a few extra pennies per hour if I get promoted, but that's pittance extra for a lot more responsibility and a lot more stress. So right now I'm trying to be happy that I'll be making a decent wage and I can relax a bit in regards to my finances. Yet I also have to keep an eye out, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I'm still trying to attend AC, but I can only attend Friday and Saturday. I'm looking for roomspace Friday night. I'd arrive Friday probably late morning (around 10am or so), and I'd have to leave Saturday afternoon. Anybody have room or know of a roomspot?

A few months ago I spoke about how the problems I'm having, trying to get vacation time for Anthrocon. I have a job that gives me paid time off, but Anthrocon lands at the same time my boss and his family take a week-long trip out of state. And since I'm de facto second-in-command, I can't take vacation time at the same time he is.

What I am trying to swing, is getting my normal days off that week to be Friday and Saturday. I spoke with my boss about it and he had no objection to that idea. So I'm penciled in for July 6th and 7th. But it's a sort of tentative thing - if anything serious happens at work I'm sorta expected to be on call to help. That shouldn't be a big deal, the people who work there can handle themselves for two days and work off a list of objectives I can leave for them (as is the custom during normal weeks anyway). But if say, someone quits that week and suddenly they need someone to cover Friday or Saturday, I'd be the person on call for it. Normally my boss would step up and fill in, but since he won't be in the state, that leaves me.

So that's what I'm left with right now. It is likely I can attend Anthrocon, but only for two days. Depending on what shift I end up working that Thursday, I might head out Thursday night so I can at least get one full day (Friday) out of it. But I'd definitely have to leave early Saturday afternoon so I can be home that evening, because I'll have to work opening shift that Sunday.

There's just this part of me that feels it's important to do it, even if it is just two days. Like, it's the principle of the matter.

If I do go, it'll be a lightly-packed trip. Two changes of clothes, hygiene stuff, camera stuff.

Now I have to ask, is there anyone I know out there with an Anthrocon room that can accommodate me for a Friday night only thing? My prior experience with rooming at cons is still making me shy away from rooming with strangers (three years in a row I was ditched last minute in favor of another roomie's butt buddy).


I've also got another precarious thing going with the MFF timeframe. I convinced my boss to pencil me in for the Fri/Sat/Sun/Mon of MFF, but that's usually not allowed because I work retail and damn near everything past October is forbidden. But it'd be my normal days off for each week, just conveniently crunched together. But again, I can't be promised or guaranteed that time off because things can happen, heck, I might be working in a different store by then with a different boss. That's a bridge I'll try to cross when we get closer to it.

So, I got a new computer. Said new computer came with Windows 10. Well, after getting it set up and booting up I ran into a problem. In short, Windows 10 wouldn't let me run any programs because the default Windows profile is the "built-in admin" profile. Okay, that shouldn't be a big deal, right? Except that I went into the control panel to create a new user profile, and that isn't a feature supported in Windows 10. Yes, really. That is the error message I got. Creating new user profiles for Windows 10 is not a feature supported by Windows 10. And because I couldn't run any programs (whether they be "Windows Edge", Skype, or literally anything), that meant that the computer was essentially useless. Heck I couldn't even use it to Google some help for myself.

Now I was fortunate because while I was putting my PC together and getting it ready, I had a friend texting me, excited about my new PC and really hoping we could play ARK - Survival Evolved, together. Well, he happens to work for a small internet and computer repair company, so I basically spent 4 hours on the phone with him, diagnosing and eventually solving the problem. I had to dive into the registry files - you know, those things that laymen ought to never mess with? I had to go in there and create registry files and modify a few existing ones. Now the computer works fine.

My big beef with all this, is that it's an extremely common problem with Windows 10, apparently. Because the internet is full of complaints about this very problem, and there's about three dozen different recommended remedies for it too. How in the world does a software company ship a product where a brand-new copy of their software, on a fresh PC no less, just doesn't work? If I have to dive into registry files just to get Windows functional, why am I not just using Unix or something in the first place?

This sort of thing is why I really start to loathe new technology these days. About a year ago I updated my Windows 7 machine and the update bricked the computer. That time, I had to have a friend come over with a Windows repair disk and boot in some sort of safe mode so he could delete a log file that corrupted Windows bootup. Again, that was a very common problem, the internet was full of stories about it, the solution was relatively simple, but Microsoft never patched their...patch. So people kept having to deal with it.

In my experience, updating other software often creates problems. Update video card drivers...bricked video card, have to rollback. Update (way back years ago) Yahoo messenger, and it completely bricks and I have to Google for a download of an earlier version. Update Firefox...suddenly it removes the ability to manage cookies properly. Another Firefox update...suddenly SWF doesn't work anymore and I have to resort to using Internet Explorer to view SWF files. Just to name a few.

So if in the future, I ever complain on here or Twitter about something, and the answer comes up as "well if you updated the software it would have been immunized against [problem xyz]", please know this is why. When I finally do get everything working on a PC, it's a delicate balance that is easily broken. So I've damn near developed a phobia about updating things anymore.

I'm not exactly eager to see what else is in store for me with Windows 10. Yeah it's working okay now, but I hear that it auto-updates all the time. What if one of those auto-updates erases my registry fix and I have a bricked computer again? What if it makes the problem even worse?

So, I went into work today and my boss started asking me about vacation time I wanted in 2018. I asked about the weekend that is Anthrocon's time period, and I was told it would be very unlikely I could get that time off. My boss has an annual camping trip he takes every year with his family. He missed last year because said camping trip fell on AC weekend, and I convinced him to let me take the time off instead. This year it's the same problem, so he gets to go. My boss has been very good to me, so it's not a fight I want to take and I'd feel rather ashamed if I won it. So as of this writing it's very unlikely I'll be able to attend AC in 2018.

I'll be honest, it stings. I had to go back and delete a tweet I made *just yesterday* where I talked about how excited I was for AC because of the people I wanted to meet and hug. I've attended every AC from 2005 through 2017. That's my home con. That's where I made...whatever little bit of a name I have for myself in the community, I made for myself in attending AC. Missing it is dang-near sacrilege.

But since AC is no longer in the cards for me, I'm looking to attend a different con instead. There are conventions I had my eye on for a while I might try for. Earlier today I put out a few feelers on Twitter, DM-ing some people and asking which cons they attend (I want to attend a con where I know at least some people going). I'll be putting out a few more feelers on that tomorrow and in the following days. Once I have that information I'll make a decision, then start trying to make plans.

Since my state's driver's license is no longer valid to board an aircraft, I need to get my passport (a process I haven't done before nor started yet). So that eliminates any cons in the early part of 2018. The extra expense of a plane ticket is going to set me back a lot of money and I won't have the resources to bring any fursuit along, so fursuiting is right out.

Just a quick notice that the final few photos from AC 2017's Saturday group (67 photos) are now uploaded to my Flickr. You can find them here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/99893.....57688096304284

On a side note, I keep having this recurring anxiety about my uploads. Specifically, a few years ago I went to a website to help color and gamma-calibrate my monitor. I followed the instructions carefully, but I ended up with a very dark screen. This meant I was seeing photos much darker than others, and subsequently I was brightening them up and way over-exposing them in the editing process. But, hey, how could I know? It took a few weeks before someone notified me of the problem. I defaulted my monitor back to factory settings and haven't touched it since then.

It's still a concern of mine how well calibrated my monitor is, and what the resulting images look like to everyone else.

There's a lot of you guys I wish I could speak to more often. I watch and read along on your twitter feeds, your FA journals, and chats. I refrain from responding much; I try to only say something when there's at least a minimum amount of substance so it's not an empty reply. But I often fear that others, especially those I care about, might feel I'm cold, distant, or disinterested. I promise I'm not. I just don't have much to talk about. Not a lot goes on in my life, other than going to work day after day. My life is boring. So it's difficult for me to relate to many discussions about what goes on in the world.

Yesterday I reached out and said as much to a special guy I am particularly fond of. But I also want my other friends and acquaintances to know as well. The fact that I don't have much to say is already effecting my relationship with my parents, who are starting to believe that I don't care about them just because I don't call often. I don't want that to happen to my friends, too.

The staffing situation at my job is pretty ridiculous. A lot of people left due to college, and that was expected but we couldn't do anything about it because corporate wouldn't give us the hours to hire and train replacements. That meant that we were critically understaffed overnight. Plus two managers left under suspicious sick leave, and another one got a new job.

Everything we do is falling way behind and the remaining staff is scheduled six days a week or more, myself included. The boss himself is working seven days next week, where one of those shifts is a 12-hour shift and another is a full-on double shift. My schedule has been swinging wildly between morning, afternoon, and overnight shifts, and it's completely exhausting me. Even when I'm home from work, I' m frequently too tired to do anything and I succumb to the occasional nap just to make it through the day, which is wrecking havoc with my sleep schedule.

I suppose the bright side is that the extra work time is allowing me the cash to catch up on my debts. But my beef is still with corporate...if those idiots would have just coughed up the labor hours to hire and train people before an anticipated problem cropped up, this wouldn't be an issue. Now we're critically behind on dozens of things, the remaining staff is fatigued and frustrated, there's little to no time for manager overnight, and getting the time to invest in training any new hires is damn near nonexistant. It feels like we're about to collapse under the weight of this incompetence....all because throwing us a little extra time to prevent a problem was asking too much. Now it's costing us in spades.

Don't know how or why, but SWF no longer works off of my hard drive. Still works from websites, but not when loading local from my computer.

Googled the problem, found the problem has been around since 2015, but the multitude of suggested fixes haven't worked.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/q.....stions/1082928

I've gone through the entire checklist on this page and nothing's worked. Just like the original poster, it just started while I was in the middle of browsing.

Anybody have any suggestions?

For almost two years now, I've had a complicated problem with my photos. Photos that I posted, then someone reposted (i.e. a fursuiter sharing a photo of themselves), would come out very washed out, drab, and green-tinted even. I think I found the cause of the issue and ran a few test photos, and none of them seem to do this. So I think the problem is solved.

All future photos should be okay to repost without worry of faded coloring. However, that does mean the old photos still suffer from this and I can't really change that.

The next thing on my to-do list is to update my sig at some point, to something semi-transparent and a little cleaner. Hopefully I can get to that soon.

So, the guy who briefly injured himself a few weeks ago is now declaring that he is hurt worse than previously thought. He's taking short-term disability and will be out for four weeks. That means there's only three managers, myself included, to cover three managerial shifts a day (morning/afternoon/overnight) for the foreseeable future. With whatever help we can scrape up from surrounding stores, this still means I'll be working at least six days a week for a while.

It's crap like this, that makes it take a while to get photos edited and posted. I'm getting so burned out from all the work that I hardly have the energy anymore when I get home. I just want to sleep. This is partially the reason I posted the video clips from AC to Flickr already. I don't possess video editing software, so there's nothing I could do to them even if I wanted to. Those are up here. Clips include: two of Tilt Longtail interacting with a child that ran up to him during a photoshoot I was trying to have with him, one of Flux wandering around the DLCC, one of Sparx Fox playing a bit on a metal drum, one of myself admiring the scales of a metal dragon fursuit, two fursuits dancing, a fursuit getting caught in a trap, and one more fursuit playing some jazz tunes on a saxophone.

It's a labor of love, though. I love you guys, I love working with you guys, I love your guys' reaction when I post your photos. It's helped me through my periods of depression and that means more to me than you know. I just need time to get it done. First ones up to be processed will be Comet Scrap's special accommodation, then the photoshoots in order that they were taken, then the general photos.

Thanks much and don't be afraid to contact me if you want to chat about anything :)

Okay, so some quick hits for those interested.

Basic photo stuff
Wednesday - 138 photos
Thursday - 494
Friday - 534
Saturday - 342
Sunday - 497

Total file size is a whopping 121 GB. For comparison, that's as much as all of my pictures combined from Anthrocon 2011 through 2013.

Investments and things to work on
I will be investing in dual 1 TB external HDs for backing up and storing photos at cons. Currently I have one 500 gig that is almost full. I want each photo, when offloaded, to be in two places. I used to go with my laptop HDD + external, but that is no longer an option. Going forward, it'll be dual external drives.

Shoulder strap is an absolute must. Oh my goodness, that neck strap just about wore off a layer of skin from the back of my neck.

Business cards. I swear, it feels like double the number of people asking me for business cards this year, compared to last year. This was something I had forgotten up until a month before the con. I tried to get something done quickly, but my job absolutely crushed my free time and I didn't get a lot of feedback in the journal I put up. I have been thinking about it a lot (especially since fursuiters kept bringing up the subject). And right now my thoughts are that I want something simple and modern, font-wise. A link to my Flickr, a link to my Twitter, and something of a minimalist kangaroo body silhouette or head in the middle (ideas and feedback welcome). Yes, I am seeking to commission an artist for that design. I am setting a goal of having business cards in my hands by end of year.

New cell phone maybe? I have a old phone by today's standards. It was made in 2012, according to what I can find on Google. While not terribly important, I did have to use my cell phone camera on multiple occasions in lieu of having business cards. When people asked to be able to contact me, I Twittered at them. And I made it a point to take a pic to tweet at them...you can see where this is going. So maybe a cell phone upgrade is in order.

Posing - still a weakness of mine. I've come light-years from where I started, but I still have a difficult time with posing fursuiters. While some just don't have the time or there's difficulty in following instruction, there's still a huge opportunity for me to learn how to pose fursuiters, angle shots, and really work with the immediate surroundings. It's something I really want to work on. I'd rate myself "okay" on this, but I don't want to be "okay". I want to be great!

The stuff that was awesome
The new camera is insanely good. I really put it through a gauntlet of different lighting exercises over the course of the con, and the preliminary results look good. There's still things it struggles with or I'm not yet skillful enough to compensate for - like radically different light levels or severely low-light conditions and black fursuits, but this is massively better than my old camera in every measure. Heck, I learned a lot just using it. I snagged a lot of photos with this that my old camera wouldn't be able to attempt. The extra low-light capabilities are a godsend. The new camera has controls in much more accessible locations instead of buried deep in menus, and I have a much better understanding of how to use them. Combine all that with more conservative use of flash and a better control over light levels, and I feel my photos this year are at a whole new level. This is definitely the best investment I've ever made. All that said, I've only observed the previews/thumbnails so far. We'll see how the chips fall when I dive into full-on editing, but I'm feeling much better at this stage than I ever did with the old camera.

I do need time to adjust settings and set up the shots, and if I am granted that time to do so then the shots have been pretty great.

Something was pretty awesome this year, in that I had the opportunity to hang out with a bunch of awesome folks. Not going to sit and try to list them; you guys know who you are! Also it was the first time meeting some friends from across the pond, and that was pretty exciting.

Fursuit dance competition - I freaking love it every year. Highlight of my con every time. I'm often moved to tears. I find that I have a big soft spot for watching the passion, the devotion, the discipline of dancing, and it's all the cuter in fursuit. That said, the single biggest thing I wanted to see, I think I missed? Anthrocon doesn't seem to have a masquerade anymore, but I'm told that Tien Long danced on stage at this year at some point. So, apparently I missed senpai noodledragon discipline dance. I am pissed. Very, very pissed. In case you are wondering, there is something called "Anthrocon Tonight", with literally zero description as to what it's supposed to be. My tweet to Anthrocon asking what it was, in time for me to line up for it in case it was supposed to be the masquerade, was never answered. Someone mindlessly fucked with my once-a-year opportunity to watch the dragon dance. This is a cardinal fucking sin and an unforgivable oversight.

The shoots
According to my records, I participated in three official photoshoots this year. I was backup photographer for Lady Rain's Friday photoshoot. I was primary photographer for Animal's photoshoot early Saturday, as well as Zarafa's photoshoot Saturday after the parade. Of these, Animal provided a memory card for the shoot so he is already in possession of his photos. I will work on getting Rain's and Zarafa's photos shipped to them ASAP. Currently the photos are still on my external HD while I try to make room for putting them on my main HD. Tomorrow after work I should be able to finish that process and start getting photos out to those.

Of special note is Comet Scrap, whom I promised to get her photos on an expedited basis. I have two sets of photos of her that I'm aware of, from two different days. I will get those processed immediately after the official shoots.

Hotel room
Hate to say it, but only having three total people in the room was rather nice. I think I'm going to change up how I do future rooms. I'm going to divide up the roomspots as such - there will be two roomspots at 1/4 the room price, one spot at 1/2 price. The "big" spot nets you your own bed, and the two smaller spots net you one half of a shared other bed. If someone wants to pony up the cash for the big spot, they can have it. If not, they can take the smaller spots and I get a bed to myself next time.

Conclusion
I had an amazing time at Anthrocon, but I've got a lot of work ahead of me still. Is there anything I missed or you want me to mention? Feel free to comment and let me know!

So...oops! I forgot about this until now.

I've been repeatedly encouraged to invest in business cards that I can hand out during conventions, in that I can hand them out to suiters I photograph so they know where to find me online.

It's a pretty neat idea and I'd like to do that. But I have no experience seeking out businesses online that can provide a timely and quality product. So to hopefully make this easy, does anyone here have experience ordering business cards and can recommend a reputable company?

However that's the easy part. The harder part is that I need to figure out exactly what I'm going to put on said card. My twitter handle and Flickr handle, for starters. I think those square barcodes are still in vogue these days, right? Maybe that too, that directly links to my Twitter page. And maybe a simple graphic design of some sort...a minimalist kangaroo silouette in the center of the card? Maybe, I don't know yet. But yes, commissioning someone on FA to produce a few graphics is entirely an option.

I was hoping to brainstorm a little bit here and see if anyone could help with ideas.

I've loved crime drama ever since I was a kid. I remember, growing up, I'd stay up late watching Nick At Nite when they had episodes of Dragnet. I don't remember much of the actual show, but I remember being completely enthralled by it. Later in life, I found Law & Order, and I love it just as much. I'd watch it whenever I could. Law & Order original, and SVU, are like crack to me. My Dad, two years ago, bought me the complete box set of the original Law & Order series for Christmas. Get this...it's 20 seasons. Twenty freaking seasons. And I watched every episode over the course of months (save for a few episodes where the DvD was scratched).

I always like thinking about that. Twenty years of Law & Order, starting in 1991. I could have grown up on this show. Also, Jack McCoy is my spirit animal. I see so much of myself in him it's uncanny.

I started getting back into the DvDs again as I was waiting for something, and I'm hooked all over again. The nuance and detail of the law, the moral ramifications off whether or not to pursue, it's just an amazing show. I won't lie, there's this feeling in the back of my head that tells me that this may have been something that this could have been a career choice that would have made me happy. There's something completely fascinating about law, and especially the stone-cold decision making that comes with it, that probably would have meshed real well with my personality.

I don't know if there's a "multiverse". But I like to fantasize that maybe if life turned out differently...maybe if I had been born smarter, or been a more disciplined person, that this would have been a career I'd have now. You know, something where my father isn't apparently ashamed of me. That'd be nice.

Yeah, I know it's a show and of course they make it look more interesting than it really is. That's the point of television. But something about it speaks to me on a deep, fundamental level. Something that tells me that this would have made me happy.

But I can't pretend that it's any sort of viable goal for me in the real world. My grades in high school were spotty - some things I did great in (math, science), and other subjects that I did poorly in or outright flunked (social studies, foreign language, and in that order). And while it's difficult to describe exactly, there's been a lot of little incidences in my life that lead me to conclude that I do not have great deductive reasoning skills. I doubt that I'd make any sort of good lawyer or prosecutor.

So I sit here, with an empty pizza box on the couch next to me, in my tiny apartment, where I have to stay up late tonight so I can switch my sleep schedule around because I need to work a week of overnight shifts.

Yeah, life would be nice if it had turned out differently.

Quite nice indeed.

I don't know about you guys, but I did my taxes, got my hair cut, did some grocery shopping, and I'm eating fast food.

In the past, I've talked about how much of a sucker I am for a really amazing final level for some video games. I unilaterally declared "Ace Combat 4: Shattered Skies" as one of the best videogames of all time because the buildup and subsequent climactic battle was, and still is, one of the most amazing gaming experiences I've had. Everything from the cinematics, to the dramatic and epic soundtrack (I have it on my Zune), to the intense and chaotic communications, they did everything they could to make that battle an incredible experience.

When I listen to that soundtrack, something happens. More on that in a bit...

How many of you have played the Talos Principle? I bought it a while ago because it looked like a fun puzzle game. I wasn't ready for what it threw at me though. I think I went through almost the full emotional spectrum playing that game and learning the backstory. No anger, but definitely intrique, hope, curiosity, determination. Oh fuck, that determination. As I gathered the last few tidbits of backstory and pushed onto the top of the tower, I've never felt determination like that before. I was fighting back tears and bursting at the seams with determination. I kept barreling forward, not taking "no" for an answer, because I was going to see this through to the end, damnit.

It's the sort of experience that drove me to read so much as a kid. When you get a really, really good story, and you're clinging onto every last word and you have to, have to keep going no matter the cost. It's amazing, and very rare. I don't know if anyone here played Talos and felt the same sort of thing I did, but I hope you did.

For those that did, do you ever go back and listen to that final music? Here, I'll post the link to youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCDAszFV-7U There's something that happens to me when I listen to that music. It's the same thing that happens to me when I listen to the final level music to Ace Combat 4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZBoiW460nU I start listening to those tracks, and I'm not just taken back to those incredible moments of experience. I start to get overwhelmed with emotion. But the thing is, I don't know what that emotion is. I find myself anywhere between tearing up a little, to outright balling my eyes out. But I'm not feeling sad or depressed. They're not tears of joy, either. Only my baby girl could make me cry tears of joy. So I'm left with this feeling. Some of it is determination. I feel that welling up inside me when I listen to those music tracks. But that's only the half of it. I can't identify the other half. It doesn't feel negative at all. But whatever it is, it's powerful. Very, very powerful. Is it awe? Is awe, an emotion? Am I awestruck by the music that takes me back?

Nobody around to celebrate with, but I did purchase and consume a pizza. And pizza is always good.